Yes, if I had spoken on my own authority; but I have
appealed to two incontrovertible and irrefragable witnesses--to the
nature that is around you--to the reason that is within you. And if you
are willing in this matter to take the voice of authority _against_ that
of nature and of reason, take it in other things also. Take it in
religion, as you do in architecture. It is not by a Scottish
audience--not by the descendants of the Reformer and the
Covenanter--that I expected to be met with a refusal to believe that the
world might possibly have been wrong for _three_ hundred years, in their
ways of carving stones and setting up of pillars, when they know that
they were wrong for _twelve_ hundred years, in their marking how the
roads divided, that led to Hell and Heaven.

55. You must expect at first that there will be difficulties and
inconsistencies in carrying out the new style; but they will soon be
conquered if you attempt not too much at once. Do not be afraid of
incongruities--do not think of unities of effect. Introduce your Gothic
line by line and stone by stone; never mind mixing it with your present
architecture; your existing houses will be none the worse for having
little bits of better work fitted to them; build a porch, or point a
window, if you can do nothing else; and remember that it is the glory of
Gothic architecture that it can do _anything_. Whatever you really and
seriously want, Gothic will do for you; but it must be an _earnest_
want. It is its pride to accommodate itself to your needs; and the one
general law under which it acts is simply this,--find out what will make
you comfortable, build that in the strongest and boldest way, and then
set your fancy free in the decoration of it. Don't do anything to
imitate this cathedral or that, however beautiful. Do what is
convenient; and if the form be a new one, so much the better; then set
your mason's wits to work, to find out some new way of treating it. Only
be steadily determined that, even if you cannot get the best Gothic, at
least you will have no Greek; and in a few years' time--in less time
than you could learn a new science or a new language thoroughly--the
whole art of your native country will be reanimated.

56. And, now, lastly. When this shall be accomplished, do not think it
will make little difference to you, and that you will be little the
happier, or little the better for it. You have at present no conception,
and can have none, how